Sadly, this movie only impressed me on the superficial and technical level: the Carpathian scenery is gorgeous, and the practical special effects for bringing the ochi creatures to life are great. I don’t think A24 is big on merchandising1, but the toys would fly off the shelves.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time staying engaged because I found the story to be really thin. The main (human) character, Yuri, decides to help the baby ochi, in spite of her father’s hatred of them… but why? Her father later comes around, and supports her quest to return the baby to its family… but, again, why? The movie doesn’t really offer many answers beyond Well, look at the cute little guy!, and because of that, it feels quite empty.
First, the positives: the visual design and rhythm of this film are full of energy, which makes it fun to watch. It goes really over the top with the gore—I watch everything with subtitles, and I’ve never seen the word squelching used as much as this film does when describing its sound effects—but then I found myself desensitizing to the squirmy discomfort, to the point where I was giggling gleefully at the gruesome moments by the end.
Unfortunately, I found the storytelling to be weak otherwise. The Substance in the film causes the main character Elisabeth (Demi Moore) to “birth” a second, younger version of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley). The rules that come with the Substance state that they “are one,” and that they must switch every seven days.
After watching the film, I couldn’t help but brainstorm about the possible permutations of the idea. In essence, the movie could have explored the concept in three ways, each with differing psychological consequences on the characters.
This Japanese comedy takes place in a spa/hotel in a small town, and follows the staff and guests as they get stuck in a mysterious time loop. A twist on the Groundhog Day formula, with a couple of key differences:
the loop is only 2 minutes long, rather than the whole day, so we can see every iteration in its entirety, in real-time
all of 10 or so characters are experiencing the same thing, which introduces an aspect of project management, as they assign tasks to each other and scramble to complete them within the 2 minutes
The first act is a lot of fun as the characters figure out what’s going on. Seeing how each person reacts is pretty funny… for example, one of the guests is a writer under pressure from his publishers, and he decides to use the time loop as a chance to rest, because it means that his deadlines will never come.
The movie surprised and impressed me with how it used its structure to illuminate emotional truths for some characters. For example, a young couple challenge themselves to escape from the others, by running away as far as they can. At first, it felt silly to me, since they know that they’ll always end up back where they started. But then I realized that the futility of the game was the point, and that it was a way for them to connect with each other, like a series of rapid-fire “dates.”
Along the way, the major characters wonder whether they caused the loop by wishing for time to stop. Everyone has a reason for fearing the future, and the natural response to this fear is wanting to just keep things as they are. The movie has a real “Monkey’s Paw” kind of message: there’s a fine line between staying in our comfort zones, and becoming stuck in a rut. We need time to move forward, even with all the scary uncertainty that progress brings.
Who do I have more of a crush on, Michael Fassbender or Cate Blanchett? I think it’s a tie.
He’s a spy. She’s a spy. They’re married. There’s a mole in the spy agency. He has to find out who it is. It might be her. The other four suspects are conveniently also paired romantically. What are the HR policies like at spy agencies? Emotional attachments are a huge risk to national security. Relationship discord, an equally huge risk. Fassbender and Blanchett, their relationship: solid. The others, not so much. I’m all for workplace romances, but with far-reaching, world-changing stakes like these, I’m not so sure.
He wears cool glasses throughout. I changed my mind. I think he wins.
I had a good time with this horror thriller, especially for the first two-thirds. The performances from the trio of lead actors are all impressive, and the characters’ respective stances on religion are all well-represented. On the downside, the villain’s plot suffers from being overly convoluted—it’s a long walk just to make a philosophical point.
There’s a point that I want to think through, which will require spoilers, so stop reading if you don’t want to know.
I have fond memories of going to see this when it came out in theatres in 1998. Watching it now, I think I can see why… back then, I would have thought it was the coolest thing, when they introduce characters with a freeze-frame showing their name on the screen. And the scene where our main characters walk as a group in slow motion and glare smolderingly at all of the other students who have been taken over by aliens… so cool.
The way this film depicts high school students was exactly my image of what it meant to be cool when I was that age: be angry and swear all the time, and talk to teachers with no respect! And fighting off an alien invasion was exactly the kind of thing that I fantasized about as a kid.
How does it hold up? I think it’s still entertaining. And I couldn’t believe who was in the cast… Jon Stewart? Salma Hayek, who appears in only a couple of scenes? Daniel von Bargen, a.k.a. Mr. Kruger of Kruger Industrial Smoothing on Seinfeld?
The characters in this Korean supernatural thriller include a professional shaman and a geomancer. The former performs rituals that exorcise bad spirits and the latter is a specialist in finding the most auspicious plots in which to bury the dead. I got a kick especially from the film’s depiction of the rituals, which involve elaborate dances and musical chanting. On the other hand, I was left asking at several points, if they’re such experts and professionals, why are they doing the thing that will obviously lead to having a curse descend on them? Just leave that mysterious gravesite alone!
When the bad spirits are released, it leads to some effective scary scenes, where the ghost only appears fuzzily in the mirror. I did have some trouble following exactly what was going on sometimes, but that may be because of some specific Korean mythology that I don’t know much about.
Ultimately, the movie has an interesting message about the identity of the Korean people, and the long historical relationship between Japan and Korea. I don’t think I felt it, but I’m sure it would hit native viewers much more.
After being blown away by The First Omen, I just had to go back and check out the original film that launched the franchise. I guess it’s considered a horror classic, but I had never seen it before.
Surprisingly, the movie made me laugh a lot. I mean no disrespect; I would characterize it more as “laughing with” than “laughing at,” even though I’m sure the filmmakers didn’t intend to produce a comedy. I laughed because I was charmed… movies have evolved since the 70’s, and the rhythms and beats that were used to create suspense back then now seem over-the-top. Compared to horror movies today, everything—the acting, editing, sound—feels slower, but bigger, more theatrical. Especially notable was the score, which was not subtle at all, transitioning from idyllic melodies into Psycho-esque stings at the drop of a hat.
Again, that’s not to say that I didn’t like it. I enjoyed the ride. With older films, since they didn’t have the ability to cram special effects into every other scene, the handful of wow moments really stand out. I also got a kick out of learning the context of the references in The First Omen. I look forward to a future double feature, watching the two back-to-back.
Another entry in the TIFF Secret Movie Club series, this film was an enjoyable rom-com about a gay Indian man who brings a boyfriend to meet his traditional parents for the first time. We hit most of the beats of the rom-com formula: the meet-cute, the big fight and temporary break-up, the grand gesture to get back together (although I felt that this scene was missing an actual apology and acknowledgement of wrongdoing), and of course, the happy ending.
Interestingly, there’s no coming out scene: the main character’s family knows that he’s gay from the get-go. But they’ve never seen him be with someone, and the difference between being accepting in theory, and being comfortable in practice, is one of the main themes of the movie.
I had a lot of laughs watching this and it was a good time. After the film, the lead actor and the director held a Q&A session over Zoom. It turns out that they’re a couple in real life, and they were able to express how personal the film was for them, which really enriched the experience for me.
I guess it’s becoming a bit of a New Year’s mini-resolution for me to liberate myself from tech platforms (see Quoteshelf). Not that I have anything against the platforms in question, but it’s always been important to me to avoid getting locked into someone else’s website.
Since 2009, the first time I attended TIFF, I’ve been tracking every movie I watch. I think I used to do it on the venerable IMDB, but once Letterboxd came along, I migrated over and never looked back.
A social site like Letterboxd encourages a certain style of writing: pithy and snarky, i.e. like a tweet. I’ve written my fair share of those, with longer reviews residing on my blog. Having my content in two different places just sticks in my craw, so I’ve finally done the somewhat tedious work to export my posts, and have collected them all here in this post.
